pained

1. 1
   adjective

   Showing or feeling distress, especially of an emotional rather than physical kind.

   A pained expression crossed her face as she read the letter.

   His voice grew pained whenever the subject of his late wife came up.

   Similarhurt, distraught, suffering, tormented, aching

   Oppositecheerful, happy, relieved, untroubled

   Note

   Unlike the past participle, which reports something done to someone, the adjective names a state that shows on the surface, and it can be graded: more pained, most pained. Its near neighbors, affronted and sore, point to the feeling it usually carries. A pained look or a pained tone more often signals hurt feelings or quiet offense than real suffering.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of pain.

   It pained him deeply to admit that he had been wrong.

   The memory of that betrayal had pained her for years.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is mainly transitive, so it takes an object or appears in the passive: the news pained her; she was pained by it. In India the verb also works without an object, meaning to feel pain or to hurt. An obsolete use, to punish, survives only in old texts. When was pained could be either form, the gradable adjective is the one that accepts more.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2